Written by famous Chinese scientist Song Yingxing (1587-1663) in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Exploitation of the Works of Nature (known as Tian Gong Kai Wu in Chinese), which was published in 1637, was Song's representative work.

Ancient agriculture, the handicraft industry, and commerce all experienced substantial development in the Ming Dynasty, which also greatly boosted the development of science and technology, and even of a commodity economy.

In agriculture, arable land, gross crops output, and output per hectare largely increased. There were even some specialized operations in some areas. All of these improvements resulted in the writings of a lot of technical books like Complete Treatise on Agriculture by Xu Guangqi, and Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shizhen in the late Ming Dynasty.

Exploitation of the Works of Nature covers all major industrial techniques of the time in agriculture, textiles, mining, metallurgy, chemical engineering, boat building, and weaponry, and includes bibliographies of Chinese and non-Chinese sources, a glossary, and appendices on Chinese dynasties, measurements, and transmission of techniques to the West. Though written about 300 years ago, the farming techniques and security measures in coal mining recorded in the book are still applicable even today.

Song Yingxing went to the capital city to take the national imperial examinations five times. On the way he had opportunities to investigate the manufacturing process in workshops. At the age of 50, he finished Exploitation of the Works of Nature.

The book starts with the volume "On Crop Growing," which introduced rice breeding, seed selection, planting, collecting, and manufacturing food-processing apparatuses. This reflects the author's view of agriculture as the basis of China's economy.

Page:

1

2

All rights reserved. Reproduction of text for non-commercial purposes is permitted provided that both the source and author are acknowledged and a notifying email is sent to us.